


Onto Parched Shores

by halfhoursonearth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Late Night Conversations, Pre-Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Teamwork and Reciprocity Sail this Ship, The Royal Palace has a lot of Rooms, Zutara Drabble December 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28185372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfhoursonearth/pseuds/halfhoursonearth
Summary: There is no home for Katara where she is not needed. But Zuko needs her very much, and he knows just where to find her.Zutara Drabble December for prompt Crashing Waves.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46
Collections: ZK Drabble December 2020





	Onto Parched Shores

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to at least contribute one submission to ZKDD because I’ve been enjoying everyone’s work so much.

There are three hundred seventy rooms in the Royal Palace, and Katara may go wherever she likes. Zuko has made sure it is so. She can avail herself of thirty parlors, twelve galleries, seven practice rings, and four libraries. She may visit the royal spa, the sunrise-viewing atrium, Agni’s Oculus, and the Fire Lord’s chambers—the last, a hopeful, hopeless instruction delivered to his private guard.

This palace holds more rooms than could ever feel like one’s own, Zuko knows better than anyone. But then, Katara has a talent for making any place feel like home: an abandoned temple shrouded in mist, a storm-swept cliff by a foreign sea, an enemy’s dusty beach house—anywhere.

Zuko shares no such gift, but he has learned some lessons from his years craving comfort here and abroad. For instance, he knows that no matter the size or opulence of a space, people tend to follow a few favorite, familiar paths. This is how he is certain he will find Katara on the east wing veranda when she disappears from Aang’s farewell feast, where the Avatar remains, holding lively court. An overcompensation—the airbender is heartbroken, Katara heartsick.

Of the scene where Zuko finds her, she is master: a near-black sky necklaced by stars, the moon-washed eastern lake shining on the horizon. Katara stands bare-shouldered in her palest blue robes, hair hung in jewels. 

Five years have passed, hundreds of letters exchanged, since they’ve seen one another for more than three days at a time, always flanked by friends and partners. Five years of hard choices and restless nights when Zuko longed for her honest opinions and assurances faster than any messenger hawk could carry them. Five years of resenting his past self, who could see her sun-sea eyes everyday. Who could see nothing. 

But now there are no partners, no looming farewells between them. Now she has arrived like a crashing wave onto parched shores, a sunrise chime for dormant dreams. 

“We have a palace at the South Pole now,” she says when he reaches her side, her eyes tracking the silver movement of the distant lake.

“What do you think of that?” 

“That the world is just going to keep changing. That we fought so it could.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to like every change.”

“Still, it’s not fair of me to celebrate everything you do to reinvent the traditions of your people only to resent what brings new wealth and possibilities to mine.”

“Some places needed to change more than others,” he says. “Some people did.”

She finally faces him, eyes glinting painfully. “ _I_ need to change, Zuko.” 

“I don’t think so.” What he doesn’t say: _You simply need to find the right place to be yourself._  
  
“We disagree then, as usual,” she says, playing lightly with her bracelet. “I am grateful to you for granting me your hospitality so indefinitely.” 

“You thank me as though your willingness to bring trainee healers to my shores and build hospitals for my poorest citizens is somehow my favor to you.” 

“Well, it is funded by _your_ gold.”

“I cannot help my people with gold alone.” He doesn’t need to mention the once-in-a-century drought, the resulting sickness spreading rapidly across the rocky hills of his home. “You may need somewhere to channel all that extra Katara-energy, but you know I need your help just as much.” 

It’s always been this way with them, he thinks, this reciprocity, since they were two war-forged children trapped in a crystal cave, discovering their shared humanity. Since they were two tenuous allies, shining lights into one another’s darkest places. Since they were two fledgling friends, facing down the end of the world side by side, his willing sacrifice met by her saving grace. 

“And you know how I like to be needed.” She conceals her bitterness poorly. Its implication: she is _not_ needed at the Avatar’s side. 

_Aang_ thinks _he needs me, but_ really _he just needs someone to take care of the tasks he forgets, to nod placidly behind him as he goes about_ his _duties. None of what he needs has anything to do with_ me _. And for me, there is no home where I am not needed._

So she had written to Zuko, weeks before she summoned the courage to end her engagement. 

In letters, they have found ways to be more honest with themselves and one another than Zuko has ever been with _anyone._ Her words have buoyed him through years of debt and insurrection, through Mai’s departure for a freedom he could never grant. Now that Katara is here, he wants to carry the openness they have found on the page into the light of day—or, as now, the deep of night. 

Already he can see this calls upon a new and different bravery. She is studying him, and it is like being watched by every star in the sky. 

“You will always be needed here, Katara,” Zuko says, pulling one of her cool hands into both of his. “And so I hope you will make yourself at home.”

What he doesn’t say, not just yet: 

_Because I am already more at home since you arrived._

_Because I have too many rooms for one man whose people thirst and starve—too much power for any man, and yet my reign holds the keys to our tenuous peace._

_Because I can’t figure this out alone. And I don’t just need someone—I need you._

There will be time to learn how to say such things aloud. 

Because for the very first time, she has crashed onto his shores with no plans to depart.

**Author's Note:**

> Staying under 1,000 words is a challenge I should probably try more often. Cheers and love to this whole community for being a light of creativity as we wind down this weird dark year <3


End file.
